Friday, March 7, 2014

Bill O'Reilly's latest "book" disappoints

Let's get a couple of things straight. I like Bill O'Reilly. I watch The O'Reilly Factor and enjoy seeing him expose the hypocrisy and barrenness of the the "secular progressive" agenda. Watching him skewer the Prez before the Superbowl was a treat.

You may take from this that I agree with Mr. O'Reilly's point of view on matters political, social and religious. You would be right. (So is he. So am I.) What I wish, however, is that he would restrict his "bloviating" -- his word -- to the airwaves, and leave the polemical writing to someone else.

Why? Because, sadly, Bill O'Reilly is no writer. For him to tout his latest opus, Keep It Pithy (Crowne Archtype, 2013), as "a literary highlight reel" is just wrong. It could be called a book by virtue of being printed on paper and bound in a hard cover, but it is not literature. I'll give him "highlight reel" though, for the "book" is really a collection of snippets from his TV scripts and transcripts. He shares with "my pal Charles Flowers" credit (or blame) for the compilation of the print equivalent of a TV "clip show".

A better compiler or editor might have attempted to impose on the collection some order or coherence. As it is, Mr. O'Reilly covers all the ground from abortion to [Ed., please insert a noun that begins with "Z"], in the zigzag fashion of a drunk wending his way home from the pub. He goes from "a little manual for dealing with the opposite sex" (pp. 102-104) to an argument against the death penalty (pp. 105-106) and onward to how to create your own "No Spin Zone" (pp. 106-109). The transition from the the first topic to the second is handled in that one-liner beloved of stand-up comics, "But, more seriously..." The ellipsis is his.

The ideas are there, all right, but they are neither original nor well-expressed. One wonders if Mr. O'Reilly's thinking is any deeper than shown by such profundities as:
- "Bottom line: Terrorist killers and those who support them are evil. Period." (p. 54)
- "The more stuff I have, the more stuff I want. And so I looked around and saw that everyone else was the same way. It was not until I had a few things that I noticed how this works. The material stuff is addicting!" (p. 57)
- "Why is there so much drug and alcohol abuse in America today? Simple: Alcohol and drugs make huge profits for legal and illegal organizations." (p. 60)
- "Here's the takeaway: If you are after success in America, substance abuse can be your downfall." (ibid.)

How's that for in-depth analysis? I've seen deeper puddles on sidewalks after a summer shower in Arcadia FL! And Keep It Pithy is full of that kind of pith. There's a fair bit of vinegar too, but the whole effect is like listening to a junior high school valedictory speech.

I am a social conservative, a religious traditionalist, and a foe of secular humanism/progressivism and political correctness in all their forms and guises. But I do spend time reading and thinking about issues such as same-sex "marriage", the campaign against public expressions of Christian Faith and the failure of Western foreign policy.

Sometimes I write about these things. So do thinkers who can write much better than I...and much, much better than Bill O'Reilly. Keep It Pithy makes me long to read the deep and well-articulated thoughts of Enoch Powell, or, closer to home, William F. Buckley Jr. If it's a compilation you're after, I recommend Freedom and Reality (a collection of Enoch Powell's speeches: Arlington House, 1969) and/or Quotations from Chairman Bill (self-explanatory: Arlington House, 1970). Both volumes occupy places of honour in my working library here at my cabin in the woods. As for Keep It Pithy, I wouldn't give it shelf space.

Sad footnote: Whatever happened to Arlington House? From 1964 to 1988 it was a publisher of jazz discographies, as well as conservative and anti-communist books. It is now defunct, but you can probably find the titles recommended on Amazon.

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